Speaking in an exclusive interview published today, co-president Mike Jones said that his goal is to have up to 60 per cent of users playing games on the social networking site within a year.

"Just as they use MySpace to discover and listen to music, I want them to use MySpace to discover and play games. It's an absolute big, big part of our mission," he said.

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Sony has registered “PlayStation Move” in Europe, and is potentially the name of the upcoming motion controller – previously thought to be Arc.

The filing for the name was made in Europe yesterday and could signal that the name “Arc” has been dropped. The company also registered the image as shown above. 

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The service, which grants access to a range of PC games from EA, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros, will charge a subscription fee of $14.95 per month, with special offers and longer subscription deals also on the cards.

"This marks a huge milestone for both OnLive and the interactive entertainment landscape as a whole, changing the way that video games are developed, marketed, accessed and played," said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. "We are opening the door to incredible experiences for gamers and enormous opportunities for developers and publishers."

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Bowen will join the company as VP of operations, taking responsibility for managing the worldwide, server-based technology as it is readied for a 2010 launch.

He has worked with Facebook since 2008, prior to which he spent five years at Sony Online Entertainment overseeing the launch of over 20 MMO titles.

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Game streaming service OnLive is set launch in the US this June on PC and Mac for a subscription of US$14.95.

When the service launches on June 17 it will have support from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros. OnLive's launch titles include Assassin's Creed II, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Metro 2033.

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Electronic Arts has announced that it is developing a new EA Sports Active game for multiple platforms, but not Xbox 360.

“Powered by new leg and arm straps with motion sensors, a heart rate monitor to capture intensity, and a new online hub to track and share workout data,” EA Sports Active 2.0 will launch for PS3, Wii, iPhone and iPod touch.

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A new report from the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) states that PC gaming software revenues hit $13.1 billion in 2009, up three per cent year-on-year.

Conducted by market research firm DFC Intelligence on behalf of the PCGA, the report took into account global software sales in all forms, including traditional retail and digital distribution.

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Rebellion is said to have axed 20 staff from its Oxford headquarters, while the company appears resigned to closing its Derby studio.

That’s according to a Develop source, although Rebellion has yet to confirm the details of the report.

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Speaking to Forbes, Fils-Aime commented: "When the software developer comes forward with an idea that can't be executed on the current platform, that's when we start thinking seriously about the next system. We're not there yet, from a Wii perspective."

Fils-Aime was also lukewarm about the importance of high definition graphics and 3D technology, saying: "For us, technology is not an endpoint. Technology is an enabler for fantastic consumer experiences. So from a hardware standpoint, we are always looking at technology. But in the end, the technology has to enable a new, unique experience."

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Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has said that the company’s not yet “thinking seriously” about a Wii successor.

“… When the software developer comes forward with an idea that can't be executed on the current platform, that's when we start thinking seriously about the next system,” the executive told Forbes. “We're not there yet, from a Wii perspective.”

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A supposed Netflix survey suggests that the US firm is entertaining the possibility of bringing its movie and TV streaming service to Nintendo’s DS handheld.

“How likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies and TV episodes on your Nintendo DS via a Wi-Fi network?” the survey asks (via Kotaku).

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Infinity Ward has confirmed that the first downloadable content for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is set for release on March 30.

The content will be a timed exclusive on Xbox 360, releasing on PS3 and PC “at a -- yet to be announced -- later date”, according to the developer’s community manager, Robert Bowling.

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The former executive at Microsoft and WildTanget, and now president of social games business hi5, said that the Wii proves that high-tech consoles aren't the next step in home entertainment, and cheaper social gaming via the web has left manufacturers in a niche market.

"This is usually when you announce [consoles]. It's 2010. No rumours either. There's two reasons for delaying. The reason for the delay is the reason I'm right," said the out-spoken executive.

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The non-profit corporation, which includes members such as Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Epic, NVIDIA, GameStop and Dell, sources data from every region in the world and covers retail sales, online gaming, digital distribution and online advertising.

The latest report was prepared by market research firm DFC Intelligence, who found that the Asia Pacific region was fuelling the majority of growth in the global PC games market.

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Square Enix has announced that it’s shipped five million copies of Final Fantasy XIII worldwide.

The highly anticipated RPG released on PS3 only in Japan last December. It went on to become the country’s fifth bestselling game of 2009, shifting 1,698,256 copies.

It launched in the west for Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 9, with the first European and North American shipment topping the three million mark.

Worldwide shipments for the series have now topped 96 million, according to Square.

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The game was released simultaneously in North America, Europe and other PAL markets on Tuesday, 9 March with the game previously having been released, as a PS3 exclusive, in Japan on December 17, 2009. Shipments outside of Japan have already surpassed 3 million units.

Launch events were held in San Francisco and Paris on Monday, March 8 and in London on Tuesday March 9. Around 3500 fans gathered for the French event on the Champs-Elysees, while the US launch party featured "talk show" style discussion with Square Enix staff and displays of scenes from the game in 3D.

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The latest iteration of the franchise was unveiled at the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and iPhone.

The game is due to be released on June 8, with the PlayStation motion controller not expected to be released until the autumn. Nevertheless, in comments made to website VG247 an EA spokesperson indicated that "timing" was the sole reason for the lack of Natal support and that it would be introduced in the next iteration.

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An award-winning interactive fiction designer (Everybody Dies, Roofed) movie director, novelist and activist, Jim Munroe opened his segment of a session on nurturing indie communities by explaining the unusual path he took into game development and the realisations that accompanied it.

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Initially announced only for the US, the service will be the first on a home console to offer movies to buy as well as just rent. The support of all six major movie studios also gives Sony a considerable advantage when competing against the more established Xbox Live service.

Sony has stated that a similar service will launch soon in the UK, France, Germany and Spain, although traditionally the content available, and sometimes the providers, has varied considerably between different territories.

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Earlier in the year Viacom had said that it was still in negotiations over a future distribution deal for its Rock Band series, after slower than expected sales hit the franchise and its big Beatles tie-in failed to meet expectations.

"Harmonix is developing Rock Band 3 for worldwide release this holiday season," announced Harmonix on the game's official Facebook page. "The game, which will be published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts, will innovate and revolutionise the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band."

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Social games on sites like Facebook are gaming’s newest success story. But a panel at GDC argued that veteran designers, whose experience dates back to the birth of personal computers, are some of the most qualified people to design them – and they appreciate the challenge, even though hits like Farmville offer little of the depth they’re used to.

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And according to David Adams, general manager at Darksiders outfit Vigil Games, the publisher has put great faith in its new creative talent and intellectual property, supporting its developers rather than pressuring them to churn out games on demand.

"THQ went through a lot of pain and restructuring - they took a lot of bullets so we could continue to make our game, and that's a good indication of their faith in us, and their drive to make great-quality products," said Adams, speaking in an exclusive interview published today.

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Civilization and Spore designer Soren Johnson explores the separation between the rules of a game and the skin that's applied to them, and argues that a game's meaning always lies in the rules.

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As social gaming and the virtual goods market continue to explode, Facebook remains its leader. Just what can possibly challenge it?

With the explosion in social gaming that’s occurred over the past couple of years, The State Of Social Gaming, social games specialist Justin Smith’s overview of the social gaming landscape, could do little but recognise Facebook’s dominance over it, with a userbase of 400 million and counting.

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Sony has announced it has acquired high definition movies from six major studios for distribution over the PlayStation Network.

20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will offer HD films for purchase and rental over the console in the US.

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In the Unite 2009 conference keynote we promised you that Unity would be picking up speed, and it has: Unity has become a powerhouse in the game industry and beyond. Nobody else is as active in democratizing sweet game technology to as many developers, and enabling them to target as many consumers. Unity has been used by well over 100,000 developers of all shapes and sizes to create thousands of games and other interactive 3D content that has touched over 40 million people.

We’re moving fast. Our engineering team now consists of 36 people (up from some 12 or so a year ago), and they are firing on all cylinders. We’ve continually released major updates with tons of features over the last years. We also started working on an Xbox 360 port, and recently blogged that our iPhone team is working on iPad support.

But those teams are just a handful of our people! So what else have we been up to? Thousands of code check ins have been done, many subsystems reworked, leading technologies integrated in Unity, and a massive automated testing suite implemented so that we can move as fast as we can.

In fact, here’s a historical graph of our code checkins:

As a project grows developers tend to check in less frequently, so the actual slope of work being done is much steeper.

Until today it was all hush-hush, but now we’re finally ready to announce our plans. Let it be known: for the last year we’ve been working on the next major release: the uber-cool Unity 3: unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/unity-3

So far the only time frame we’ve promised is “summer 2010″, but we’ll be giving early beta access – and a discount – to anyone who pre-orders.

Also, we’ve just announced that Unity will add support for iPad, Android, Xbox 360, and PS3! That’s the kind of “author once, deploy anywhere” that has remained a developer’s wet dream for years. And not just from “one codebase”, but from one heck of a unified and polished IDE paired with the industry’s best asset pipeline!

I hope you’ll stick around with us, we’re only just getting started!

PS. Because we’re unifying the core Unity products with Unity iPhone (and all the other deployment targets too) the upgrade rules are a bit complicated and we haven’t done the best job at explaining them. We are working on this, please bear with us as we are inundated with questions – we will sort this all out and make it as clear as it can be in the near future.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has confirmed that Harmonix is working on Rock Band 3, which is set for a worldwide release “this holiday season”.

The Viacom boss’ revelation came during a talk at the Credit Suisse Group Global Media and Communications Conference this morning. Since then Harmonix staff members have begun tweeting their confirmations of the upcoming release.

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 An Xbox 360 that served as evidence to impeach a Baltimore Mayor on embezzlement charges in 2008 is now on sale through Ebay.

The US sate’s prosecutor, Robert A. Rohrbaugh, confirmed that the item is indeed disgraced Mayor Sheila Dixon Xbox 360.

"We're hoping to get as much as we can for it," Rohrbaugh said, with the money set to go to a youth charity in the area,

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Electronic Arts has announced that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 will feature The Ryder Cup and will support Sony's new motion controller.

The title's set to come out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and iPhone, with Tiger Woods representing the US team and Rory McIlroy representing Europe.

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Hit Syfy show Battlestar Galactica is set to receive the MMO treatment by browser-based developer Bigpoint.

The series adaptation will be making its way to browsers “this fall” and has been built on Unity’s engine, which was also used to make Cartoon Network’s free MMO FusionFall.

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1) Online multiplayer is cool. Like the coolest way to play games. NHL ‘10 gets boring playing against CPU… but put there 12 human players on the ice and you are looking at a totally different experience. Left 4 Dead – I tried it like once solo (boooooring), but go for online multiplayer and it rocks. (Versus mode makes it even rockier).

2) Player base.

That point number two is the tricky part, the part that makes online multiplayer slightly painful for indies. In order to get players, there needs to be players. But in case there’s no players, new players won’t appear.

(The AAA game publishers have sort of figured out a solution to this puzzle: pour millions and zillions of money into advertising and building hype. Then the game might have a chance.)

With indies, it’s slightly trickier.

Even AAA studios were vary of online multiplayer only games. Battlefield 1942 was an “online multiplayer” only game and publishers were staring the devs like a rotten fish or something (a true event based story I just made up) when they heard that it was going to be online only. I recall that it was said to the devs that they should get single player campaign or that game would never succeed.

Well, they didn’t. And the rest is history.

In case you don’t remember the game’s history, I’ll tell you: they made BF1942, they got an publisher, I bought the game, it was the most excellent game I had played for long time and I spent tons of time playing it several years ago, other people also bought tons of games and now the devs pretty much have a solid brand and tons of money in their pockets. Not sure about that last point, but the bottom line is: that game was a success.

The point is. I wonder if it’s monetary wise to even consider doing an online multiplayer only game as an indie. Businesswise my brain is telling me “stop thinking that, do a hidden object game”. The other side of the brain is saying “well, what kind of games do you play? Online multiplayer? Would it – like you know – make sense to focus on doing a game that you know you will truly like?”

Undergraduates looking to break into the videogame industry face a gruelling climb to the top of the CV pile. While the job market has expanded and created new angles of entry, such as through indie development, simply getting your vast stockpile of untapped talent noticed by employers or publishers is ever the problem.

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The game is in development at the recently acquired Big Huge Games, under the leadership of Elder Scrolls lead designer Ken Rolston, and based on the fantasy world of RA Salvatore and comic book artist Todd McFarlane.

"From day one, 38 Studios has been focused on creating the next generation of entertainment experiences that embrace all mediums, including film, television, comics, novels, toys and, of course, games," commented Curt Schilling, founder of 38 Studios.

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A new report from Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices has predicted that PS3 will eventually become this generation’s bestselling home console.

Key to this will be the system’s lifespan – the report predicts that PS3 “will still be a commercial platform five years after the Wii has been replaced”.

It forecasts: “Lifetime PS3 sales are predicted to reach 127 million units, compared to 103 million Wii units.”

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Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 topped US PlayStation Network sales in February.

Likely boosted by a recent price promotion, the fighter beat off competition from January release Hustle Kings to claim the top spot. The pool and billiards title debuted in second place, ahead of more familiar faces such as Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VII and Flower, reports Joystiq.

01. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

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According to the latest Twitter updates the servers were under attack again yesterday, with some users experiencing trouble signing in. Ubisoft claim that 95 per cent of players remained unaffected and that login servers were fully re-established at 1am CET.

Ubisoft also claims that Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 "are withstanding the efforts to crack them" and that "no valid cracked versions exist". Most torrent sites do contain links to both games, but Ubisoft claim these are incomplete versions.

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Codemasters has officially unveiled Bodycount, the recently revealed new shooter IP in development at its Guildford studio.

Built using Codemasters’ proprietary Ego engine and set for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 in the first quarter of 2011, the game’s development team features a number of former Criterion staffers who worked on last-gen FPS Black.

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Speaking at the Jefferies Annual Global Technology Conference in the US, as reported by website IGN, Mount claimed that the company's best designers were working on the platform.

With Microsoft's stable of first party developers having shrunk considerably in recent years it was unclear which developers she was referring to, although Rare are known to be heavily involved with the project and Lionhead Studios are implementing Natal features in Fable III.

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Emergent Game Technologies has officially confirmed the appointment of Scott Johnson to the position of chief executive officer.

Johnson has held the position since late last year and led the company to record results through the close of 2009. In February, Emergent said its annual revenues and profits were up 35 per cent and 58 per cent respectively.

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The prediction is based on the PS3 remaining a commercial platform for five years after the Wii has been replaced. Report author David Mercer predicts a 127 million unit lifetime title for the PS3, compared to 103 million for the Wii.

The global totals for the three consoles currently stand at approximately 68 million for the Wii, 38 million for the 360 and 32.5 million for the PS3.

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Unity Technologies has unveiled Unity 3.0, the third generation of its development platform.

The company said that it will expand its list of supported platforms – Web, PC, Mac, Wii and iPhone - to include Android, iPad and PS3, claiming that its engine offers “the broadest support on the market”. Xbox 360 support was also announced late last year.

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Speaking in an interview with website Giant Bomb, Hight commented: "We are stamping discs now, so we're effectively done, just got a couple of countries that we're finishing up on this week, and we've spent $44 million on God of War III."

"Believe it or not, that's right within budget," he added.

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Valve has announced that it’s bringing gaming service Steam, and its Source gaming engine, to the Mac.

Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

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Online games developer and publisher Globex has signed a number of ex-Pandemic staff to lead a new US-based studio.

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That's the view of Keith Arem, director of the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare series', who said that both industries can learn from one another as they continue to grow as the leading entertainment mediums.

"The success of the games industry is going to benefit those other movie industries. It's providing more work, it's providing more content," said Arem, speaking in an exclusive interview published today.

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Writing on Twitter, Bowling also stated that Modern Warfare 2 downloadable content details would be released this week.

Modern Warfare 2 was the best-selling title of 2009, with 11.86 million units sold in the U.S., UK and Japan alone, comfortably ahead of second placed title Wii Sports Resort on 7.57 million.

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Although the team is yet to announce its first title the founders include Kyle Gabler, best known for co-founding existing indie studio 2D BOY and working on the critically acclaimed World of Goo.

Kyle Gray created Nintendo DS title Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure during his five year stint at EA. The third member of the team is Alan Blomquist, also an ex-EA employee and co-developer of World of Goo.

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The company already has studios in China and Taiwan, but this move marks a significant expansion into the North American market, with plans to offer direct-to-consumer games for online audiences in the US and China.

"The ability to innovate and be agile has become essential for creating great games," said Benjamin Chow, CEO of Globex Studios. "By putting together this highly creative international team, we are bringing together the highly sophisticated gameplay of a western game with the unique social gameplay of a Chinese MMO - effectively delivering engaging gameplay experiences that reach broad consumer demographics on a global scale.

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God of War III cost Sony Santa Monica US$44 million to make, according to director of product development John Hight.

“We are stamping discs now, so we’re effectively done. Just got a couple of countries that we’re finishing up on this week and we spent $44 million to make God of War III,” explained Hight in an interview with Giant Bomb. “Believe it or not, that's right within budget.”

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Microsoft has announced that it intends to showcase the full lineup of third-party Natal games at this year's E3.

"We have very strong first and third-party developer support for [Natal],” said Mindy Mount, Microsoft's CFO of its Entertainment & Devices Division. "Needless to say, we're putting some of our best people on coming up with great game ideas for this, and we're going to have some great stuff."

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Sony has announced it is readying a software update that will allow the PlayStation 3 to run 3D games and movies.

The update will be available for free and requires no hardware update to the PS3 itself, however a 3D TV is still necessary.

"PS3 users worldwide will only need to upgrade the PS3 system software via the internet and there is no need to repurchase the system to enjoy 3D games," said Nainan Shah, vice-president of new platform, planning and development, SCEE.

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The service supports a library of games including Valve's own Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series, and the recently announced Portal 2 will be the company's first simultaneous Windows and Mac release.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality internet clients," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

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Unity Game Engine Version 3 has arrived!

Games industry analysts have weighed in with US sales predictions for the month of February ahead of the NPD Group’s release of official market data this Thursday.

Wedbush’s Michael Pachter forecast console and handheld software sales of $665 million, down ten per cent compared to last February’s $737 million, while Cowen and Company’s Doug Creutz said he expects a 16 per cent decline.

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Japanese development studio Cing reportedly filed for bankruptcy on March 1.

Founded in 1999, the company is best known as the developer of Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for DS. It also made Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories for Wii and partnered with Town Factory for Little King's Story, which was also released on Nintendo’s home console.

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US publisher Majesco is once again in danger of having its stock delisted from the Nasdaq.

Nasdaq marketplace rules state that companies’ listed securities must trade at a minimum price of $1.00, but the bid price for Majesco’s common stock closed below that level for 30 consecutive days, leading the company to be notified of its potential delisting.

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[Update: Ubisoft servers attacked]

Ubisoft’s controversial new DRM platform ran into further criticism this weekend after some of the company’s customers were locked out from playing the PC versions of Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter 5.

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Valve has reportedly confirmed plans to release Portal 2 for PC, Xbox 360 and Mac “this holiday season”.

The sequel to first person puzzler Portal - which received numerous awards following its 2007 release - is set "hundreds of years" after the original and will introduce a new co-op mode, according to Game Informer magazine (via CVG).

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The multiformat title outsold the well-received original by a factor of 3 to 1, with 53 per cent of sales on the Xbox 360, 31 per cent on the PlayStation 3 and 16 per cent on the PC. The game also topped all of the relevant individual formats charts.

Ubisoft's Wii exclusive Just Dance saw sales fall by 15 per cent but still managed to rise one place to number two, pushing Aliens vs Predator down to number three as sales dropped 61 per cent.

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Comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggest that the company is looking into the possibility of introducing new Xbox 360 hardware configurations.

Responding to a question about hardware diversity following a speech at the University of Washington last week, the executive mentioned additional "form factors" for Xbox 360, with various price points to suit them.

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The company's DRM came under fire from the moment it was announced, as it requires that users connect to the internet while playing the games – even the single-player elements.

"Due to exceptional demand, we are currently experiencing difficulties with the Online Service Platform. This does not affect customers who are currently playing, but customers attempting to start a game may experience difficulty in accessing our servers," said the company yesterday. "We are currently working to resolve this issue and apologise for any inconvenience."

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The consultation was announced in late 2009, with Australian citizens being asked to submit their views before a February 28, 2010 deadline. In order to rally support the "Grow Up Australia" campaign was launched, with prominent support from retail chain EB Games.

Although Australia has an 18+ age rating for films and DVDs, the highest rating for video games is 15+. This has led to games which would receive the highest rating in other Western countries being either severely censored before release or refused classification.

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Electronic Arts’ Battlefield: Bad Company 2 debuted atop the UK all formats chart during the week ended March 6.

The DICE developed modern warfare FPS charted ahead of former bestsellers Just Dance, Aliens Vs Predator and Heavy Rain, while Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing jumped three places to round off the top five.

Wii Fit Plus placed sixth, followed by Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Wii Sports Resort, FIFA 10 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

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I have no clue how much it costs to do pixel art. If you happen to know a pixel artist (or happen to be one!), I’d appreciate if you could give me some insight on this.

The warning came as Majesco's share price remained below USD 1 for 30 consecutive days. This follows the company's disappointing fourth quarter results that showed a $7.2 million loss, despite improvements in revenues and profitability.

If Majesco does not raise the share price, which currently stands at $0.99, above the minimum amount for 10 consecutive days of trading it will receive written notification that a delisting is pending.

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That's according to Chris Hecker, ex-Maxis developer, who said that although he is funding his own game project through savings and the help of family and friends, he's confident it can be profitable in the long term.

"The good thing about nowadays when it comes to financing is that there are proven good games of this size that have been profitable," said Hecker in an interview published today. "Before I joined Maxis I was working on an indie game for a long time and never finished it, but back then there was shareware on the PC, but no real console model - no way to monetise it.

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A brief report on the Japanese language site Net-IB, as translated by Web forum NeoGAF, suggests that the firm was forced to make the filing on 1 March.

A small studio with less than 30 staff, Cing was founded in 1999. Its debut title was the Japan and Europe-only release Glass Rose for Capcom.

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The publisher has attributed the game's continuing success to constant development of new features, themed in-game events and "persistent marketing support".

"With Free Realms, we've been able to reflect the needs and wants of our players by keenly listening to their suggestions and feedback," said SOE president John Smedley.

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The team behind God of War I

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Lucasarts may be bringing out a special edition of Monkey Island 2, following the success it had in re-releasing the original.

According to a report by Kotaku, "sources" claim that the game is due to be announced very soon, potentially at this week's Games Developers' Conference, and like the original it will have new graphics and audio.

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Stainless Games has added a new member to its senior management team with the appointment of ex-Eidos development director, Darren Barnett.

At Eidos, Barnett working on new IP, including Just Cause, as well as franchises such as Tomb Raider and Hitman.

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Sony has announced that its MMO Free Realms has hit over nine million registered players.

This represents impressive growth for Sony's free-to-play MMO, having announced only 3 million users users in June last year.

"With Free Realms, we've been able to reflect the needs and wants of our players by keenly listening to their suggestions and feedback," said John Smedley, president of SOE.

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5th Cell has unveiled a sequel to its hit DS title Scribblenauts in the latest issue of Nintendo Power.

Scribblenauts 2 will have 10,000 more words to create scenarios, as well as 120 new and improved levels, improved controls and a level editor.

Adjectives are set to play a bigger role, and there will be a new hints system as well as more merits. The title is set for release "this fall" and achieved sales of over a million in February.  

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Anyway, with my newly purchased PS3 I also got NHL ‘10.

There was several things that caught my eye in terms of “casual friendly”. Casual games are more about “guiding player gently to do something and then mainly rewarding the player” whereas hardcore games are more about “you gotta have fast reactions and if you fail you are dead”. Okay, that’s a tiny simplification, but you get the point.

In NHL ‘10, there’s several “casual gamer” friendly things.

Tutorials/learning puck handling
Before you can play the game, you can train how to shoot, pass and do stuff with the puck. There’s practice modes to give you a soft landing on real games.

Rewards/feedback
One really cool feature I noticed was that the coach gives feedback after each period. Depending how I played, I get feedback such as “good assists” or “avoid no bad penalties”. In the first game, I paid attention to these and they really felt good guidance on what to do more and what to avoid.

In-game guidance
During the game, there’s an arrow pointing “where to position”. For example, if I play the left wing attacker, the arrow points me “where I need to go”.

Many adventure or action games provide “where to go” information, but it was cool to see the same in a sports game. Really user friendly.

Penalty
Okay, playing as a goalie is hardcore: “if you do one mistake the opposing team will score”. And half of the time, you just wait for action to happen, and you have no control over getting your team to win – get some points you know.

But, in “be a pro” (or in online multiplayer) there’s a really sweet way to penalize player. It’s pretty obvious for an ice hockey game: penalties. In my first games, I was tackling too hard (doing bad things) and took penalties. Well, when you sit in the bench for 2 minutes (game time, that’s like 30 secs real time) watching others play… you sort of get the idea that “maybe I should stop getting penalties”.

It was cool way to penalize the player. Do stupidities = you don’t get to play for a moment.

Okay, there’s hardcore stuff as well
I’m not trying to say that NHL ‘10 is a casual game. Or that it would have anything to do with casual gaming. It’s a hardcore game. I’m just trying to make a point that there are several game design elements done similarly as in casual games. NHL has tons of hardcore things: first is the menus (they are from Dante’s hell: I have to press like 17 buttons and menu items before I get to play), then it’s the six axis controller (left stick to move, right stick handles the … well, stick. Down, up… buttons. That’s certainly not casual), difficulty levels (there’s really tough opponents), learning curve, and many many things.

But for me… it’s casual fun, I’m a casual hardcore guy anyway.

This is my first video tutorial in a series show my process of learning how to make a simple game in Unity 3D.

This part shows how to create a new project and a first
introduction scene which then in next tutorial will be used
as a splash screen for the game.

I'm a newbie on Unity 3D so there may be better ways to
do things. If so, please tell :).

I will use Cinema 4D and BodyPaint 3D in this series, but any 3D modeler which can produce FBX files is OK.
Cast: Roland Strålberg

Leadwerks technology showcase for GDC 2010.
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The scene was made by Pure3D, a visualization studio in Germany.
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Cast: Leadwerks

I got PS3 + NHL ‘10 couple of days ago. I read some reviews and heard that NHL provides a “be a pro mode” where you can create your own custom player and gain experience during your ice hockey career. After I heard about this (please keep in mind that my NHL experience stopped to ‘95 since all those ‘97, ‘01 were crappy) I thought that “it’s a stupid idea, people want to control their favorite NHL stars, not create their own guy there”. I knew that EA got this thing wrong.

Well, I knew it totally wrong. I got suck down in the game and got that “just one more game” feeling and forgot to write a blog post.

To break down the situation, here’s some facts:

• NHL ‘10 comes with “be a pro mode” where you create your own custom player.
• EA thinks this is a good idea: EA’s group of designers obviously think this is a good idea and they probably have some years of experience in doing ice hockey games and improving the game.
• Jesse Schell (author of Art of Game Design) suggest that this might be a good idea: in his book he mentions how “boys want to be superstars/heroes”. Don’t remember exactly how he put it, but basically I can draw a conclusion that book favors this idea.
• Then there’s this guy who plays NHL ‘10 using nickname “cheeseinmyhat” who had already decided that “be a pro is a sucky” idea before testing the game. That would be me.

EA thinks it a good idea.

Designer work suggest the same.

Yet I come “knowing” how “that won’t work”.

Boy was I wrong.

I tested the game once and immediately fell in love with the idea. I tested the game online and in the very beginning it was cool to see “HIETALAHTI” in the back of the jersey (hockey shirt? whadda heck is that called?). I was in the game now. It wasn’t just playing as Koivu or Selänne. I got in the game. And after some matches, when I saw “HIETALAHTI” appearing as 2nd star in the game – it was a great feeling.

And all because I could put my name somewhere.

Couple of notes to self:
- Saying “no” to something before checking/testing/evaluating the idea is not leading anywhere.
- Need to get more points in NHL ‘10. I wanna see my name more on those 3 game star selections.

P.S. If anyone wishes to play against – or with – me NHL ‘10 with PS3, you can find me using nick cheeseinmyhat.

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